James Call - page 27

The Florida Department of Health late Monday scheduled a December 30 rule development workshop in Orlando for the Charlotte’s Web law. Last month an administrative law judge invalidated a proposed rule. Meanwhile, the department still will neither confirm nor deny whether Linda McMullen, director of the Office of Compassionate Use has been reassigned. Word started circulating Saturday that she had been reassigned. The Department of Health communication director said Saturday he would not have access to the individuals who would…

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State Rep. Reggie Fullwood and Jacksonville City Councilman Johnny Gaffney face off in a Democratic Primary Tuesday for House District seat 13.  A special election scheduled for Feb. 17 is required because Fullwood didn’t properly file his paperwork for the fall election, providing an opening for school voucher proponents to recruit candidates and briefly divide the House Democratic Caucus when the party took sides in the primary. Fullwood was first elected to the House in 2010 and had served on…

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Gwen Graham took a victory lap in the Panhandle this past week, meeting with business leaders in four of the biggest counties of the 2nd Congressional District. Graham is a rare Florida Democrat. She won an election. While party leaders stage their familiar post-midterm drama, and politicians, consultants, and donors express bewilderment about the shellacking the GOP gave them, Graham is preparing to take office Jan. 6. Graham’s campaign and approach could serve as a blueprint if the Democratic Party…

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Word is circulating in Tallahassee that Linda McMullen is no longer director of the Office of Compassionate Use and has been reassigned back to the Department of Health’s Prosecution Services Unit. A department spokesman said DOH would have no comment until Monday. The move means the division charged with bringing medicinal marijuana to Florida is without a leader at a crucial time. The Office of Compassionate Use was created to implement the Compassionate Medical Cannabis Act of 2014. It was…

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Monday we may know more about the future of Charlotte’s Web in Florida. That’s the deadline for the Department of Health to decide whether to appeal a judge’s ruling invalidating its proposed rules for medicinal marijuana. Under the law approved in May, doctors are authorized to order a marijuana oil  to treat seizure, cancer and patients with muscular disorders starting Jan. 1, 2015.  However, when nurseries challenged DOH’s proposed rules identifying who is eligible for the licenses to grow marijuana…

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Rep. David Richardson continues to sculpt a statute to exempt works of art from the sales tax. Richardson this week filed HB 89, a fine-tuning of a proposal that failed to get out of committee last year. Richardson said he wants to support the arts by eliminating double taxation. Art, he explained, often is purchased as an investment, and currently the state collects a sales tax when a consumer purchases art and then the federal government collects a capital gains tax…

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About 100 medical marijuana advocates will gather in Miami next week and plan their next step. The two day meeting to discuss regulatory issues comes in the wake of the failure of Amendment 2 at the polls and while the state struggles to implement a Charlotte’s Web law. Florida for Care, an Orlando-based group which formed to advocate for a well-regulated medicinal marijuana industry under Amendment 2, is producing a two-day strategy session at the Intercontinental Hotel starting Dec. 16…

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